Mugar: Boston July 4 broadcast might be on cable – next year

Boston’s 4th of July celebration on the Esplanade has lost its national broadcast, but David Mugar is weighing whether the next step for the spectacular fireworks production might be a cable network.

Before CBS, cable network A&E carried Boston’s signature 4th of July show, Mugar said. While A&E has since moved in a different direction with its programming, he said, there is the Hallmark channel and “a plethora of different cable channels it could go to and probably will in the future if the public wants this to be available across the channels.”

“That’s something we could work on,” said Mugar, who is CEO and president of Mugar Enterprises and the 4th of July show’s longtime producer.

Roughly a half million people attend the annual event on the Esplanade, though tightened security measures may discourage some attendees this year. The live audience is what inspires Mugar, not the television viewers, and he has known for months that CBS had cancelled it as a national program but did not make the news public.

“We were waiting for CBS to announce it because it’s their business to announce it, not us. They chose to not say anything – three weeks out to say it’s not going to be on national television,” he said.

The network’s slow pace in announcing its cancellation of the broadcast mirrored precisely how it handled the process of booking acts for Boston’s show, Mugar said -- decisions handled solely by CBS.

“We’d get to June 20th and not know who they’d be booking for talent. Being a large national show had huge hindrances to it,” he said, later adding, “(The cancellation) means we won’t be able to attract a Beyonce type national entertainer who want to be on a national stage. Maybe we attract a locally oriented person – like a Steven Tyler (Aerosmith) or James Taylor. Extremely well-known but centered here.”

Liberty Mutual is the sole sponsor of the 4th of July fireworks display and Mugar said he informed the company immediately when CBS pulled out, though Mugar said the network’s decision had no bearing on Liberty Mutual’s investment. The insurer had renewed its contract last summer, he said, and never required any television coverage as a stipulation for sponsorship.

He recalled the moment Liberty Mutual got involved.

“Ted Kelly picked up the phone and called me and said, ‘I’m Ted Kelly and I’m CEO of Liberty Mutual and I think we ought to be the sponsor of the 4th of July. We’ve got liberty in our name and we belong to this event,’” Mugar said.

Maybe Mugar should be upset about the loss of a national television contract, but he downright denies it. Rather, he repeatedly stresses that the show is going back to its roots – a “New England type show,” Mugar said.

Maybe one day there will be cable coverage for the show, maybe not, but Mugar remembers 40 years ago, when the 4th of July celebration on the Esplanade first started, and it had no television coverage at all.

That was just fine then and it still is now, he said.

“I started this out many years ago as a local event and it’s come back home now. It’s back where it all began,” he said.